It never matters how in love you feel with your partner. There still might come a time when your relationship just stops feeling right. The uneasiness and discomfort you feel at this point could possibly be the usual restlessness couples tend to feel sometimes or it could actually be a sign that you have not chosen the right person to share your love with.
So what exactly should be the strategy to fall in love with the right person? According to eHarmony’s vice president of content, Jeannie Assimos, it completely depends on who you decide to love.“If you don’t change your mate selection mechanism, you will subconsciously choose the same heartache every time. You will ignore the obvious red flags, believing, that this relationship will be different … but nothing changes,” she said. “The key to finding true love is to discover the mechanism in your subconscious which fits like a puzzle piece with potential partners. You don’t have to change how you act, your clothes, your weight, or your personality; you just need to shift your piece of the puzzle. When your puzzle piece shifts, you will see that the men or women you meet will start to change as well.”
Here is a list of 4 signs to look out for and confirm that you might have chosen the wrong person:
1. Your self-esteem is at an all-time low
Love isn’t supposed to hurt so much. If you see that you always end up feeling worse about yourself after spending some time with your partner, it’s definitely time to start re-evaluating your relationship.
A loving and healthy relationship is supposed to make you feel good and more confident. Unfortunately, the main problem here is that once your partner gets successful in diminishing your self-esteem, a vicious cycle starts where you will continue to accept bad treatment.
This is because you’ve started feeling like you can’t do better than this or that you don’t deserve better than this. Psychologist Alice Boyes says, “People with low self-esteem tend to be less confident that other people perceive them in a positive light. They doubt whether strangers will like them, and they’re not sure if the people they’re close to will continue to like, love, accept, or want them.”
2. You’re just not yourself anymore
A person who truly loves you will always be willing to accept you for exactly who you are. You should never feel like you’re being pressurized to fit an ideal that your partner has carefully crafted for you.
You have the right to live life your own way, to do the things you really want and to stay as authentic and real as possible. If you feel like you’re constantly downplaying certain traits of your personality or pretending to enjoy the activities and events that you don’t even care about, you are doing your relationship more harm than good. Here’s what life coach Carol Chanel says about this in her ezine: “What is non-negotiable for you? You need to be really clear about that and to communicate those things to the person you’re going to be with.
The subjects will include, but are not limited to, how you spend your time; who you spend your time with; eating — when and what; exercise — when, where, what; money; and creative pursuits. There aren’t any rules. Just the need for communication. You will compromise on some things. That’s important. But not on a regular basis on the non-negotiables.”
3. You don’t feel safe with them
One very important sign that you’re with the right person is that you always feel physically and emotionally safe when you’re with them. If your partner has ever been verbally or physically abusive, then you’re smart enough to know this can’t be love. Try your best to immediately get away from this situation and surround yourself with the people who truly care and the people who can ensure that you remain safe.
The love you might feel for a person like this is often just distorted hope or fear. Psychologist Craig Malkin wrote about this in Psychology Today: “Their desperate, often palpable hope, if you sit in the room with them, is that the abuse will go away. And they tend to block out all evidence to the contrary. In point of fact, they stay for love. Many abuse survivors cling to the positive traits in their partners — like being affectionate and reliable.
In one study, more than half of the abuse survivors saw their partners as ‘highly dependable’.”
4. You find yourself pining for another person
Do you constantly think about a past love and then go on to wonder, “What if?” This could actually be your heart’s way of warning you that you’re in the wrong relationship.
And research has actually found that a rekindled romance might end up being more successful than your current one. Pamela Weintraub, a Psychology Today Contributor says: “According to [Nancy] Kalish, the country’s foremost expert in rekindled romance, lost-and-found romances are surprisingly successful, as long as both partners are not otherwise attached at the time they reconnect.
In Kalish’s initial sample of 1,000 lost-and-found lovers, ages 18 to 95, nearly three-quarters remained together after a decade of study. When these past lovers married each other, their divorce rate after four years tallied in at no more than 1.5%.”
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